Chicago Botanic Garden

Education — Lenhardt Library

Current Books & Book Reviews

PHOTO: bookcover

Susan Colleen Browne and John F. Browne.
Little Farm in the Foothills: A Boomer Couple's Search for the Slow Life.
Bellingham, Wash.: Whitethorn Press, 2009.
paper, 205 pp., ISBN 978–0–9816–0770–2, $14.00.

Describing their yearning for a return to nature and a slower–paced lifestyle, author Susan Browne and her husband, a retired policeman, trace the origins of this sentiment in a deeply personal story. Raised in a city, she longed for "outdoor space," which she found in a new suburb. Over time its eventual over–development left the couple longing for a place in the country where they could grow their own food. The story of the complications that went with this search for a rural site to homestead reveals the hopes and foibles of a couple in pursuit of their "Great American Dream."

— Marilyn K. Alaimo, garden writer and volunteer, Chicago Botanic Garden.